What is Google +1?

Google +1 is yet another
attempt to make Google more social. It’s Google’s version of the Facebook
“likes”, a simple feature that’s very powerful because it’s part of a social
network. Google will show +1 buttons next to all search results and ads, while
encouraging other sites to include the buttons. All +1′s are public and they’re
tied to Google Profiles.

The goal is to use this data to personalize search results
and ads by recommending sites +1′d by your friends. Google Social Search
already does this, but there’s no support for Facebook likes, so Google had to
come up with a substitute.

It’s a simple way to Like
Google search results?

When
you’re signed into your Google account, every Google search result will now
have a +1 icon next to it (right now you have to activate in Google
Experimental). If you find the search result useful or just enjoy the linked
site, you hit the +1 icon. Google says by +1-ing a result you’re giving it a
recommendation, a stamp of approval. More
+1′s on a result means the site is more interesting.

Is it
Social?

Yes, it is definitely
social. You can see what your friends +1′d which ideally lends more credence to
a particular search result. Since Google displays so many sites, these little
+1′s will help you sift out the crappy ones (if you didn’t banish them
already). Imagine if your best friend found a link interesting and +1′d it.
When you stumble upon that in the future, you’re probably going to click it.

Is it a new
Social Network?

It is not a social
network. When the Google +1 project first started (as Google Me), it was billed to be Google’s Facebook killer.
Clearly, it’s not. The +1 system works more like Likes in Facebook or Diggs
in Digg, meaning to say it’s a bare bones simple way to show that you like
something. That’s good! Google became the king of search because it was simple.
+1 is simple.

Will it help
Google to target better ads?

Yes, definitely. You can
also +1 ad’s, which combined with the data of your usual +1s of search results,
will let Google learn more about you and better target their ads. It’s sort of
like data research masked as a feature, like when Google offered free Google
411s to improve their voice recognition software, Google +1 improves their ad
delivery system.

Google isn’t done with
+1 yet. They’ve learned from previous mistakes in Google Buzz and Google Wave
where they dug a grave for those products by overhyping them. This time, by
starting small with a simple +1 icon only available on Google search results,
they can quietly go about their business and slowly add to it (like +1-ing
directly from a website, from Chrome, from apps etc.).

Will it
change the way we you Google?

Definitely not,Google +1 is another sign that Google wants to
evolve into a more social search engine. All those +1′s they keep track of will
not only help Google make their searches better, but also make them more
relevant to your social circle. As the Internet gets clotted in cobwebs, having
friends personally +1 the best sites keeps Google from falling too far behind
Facebook and Twitter in social sharing.

This +1 is a small button that will reside next to each and every
Google Search result. If you like the result, you click the +1 button and it
gets shared with your social circle — and the public (more on that in a bit).

The
button also works on the ads that appear in Google Search. If you like those
and think they can be useful to friends, you can also hit the button there to
highlight them. That may sound like something no one would ever do, but the
implementation is actually pretty smart. You see, since the pages that are
linked to in Google ads also appear in Google’s regular index, if a page has
ever been +1′d as a regular result, it will also show up as +1′d in the ad.

But let’s take a step back for a second. Google
+1 is an extension of what Google has been doing for a while with
Social Search, Google’s Matt Cutts tells us. In their most recent update
to that feature, results were surfaced and highlighted when someone in your
social circle shared something on a social network like Twitter or Buzz. “People
really like this aspect of social search,” Cutts says.

At the
same time, the current social mechanisms require some work to be useful — you
have to explicitly share a link somewhere. You might not want to do that with
every link you like. And that’s where the +1 button comes in, it’s a simple way
to indicate you like a page and think it might be useful to others. Again,
basically a “like” button.

Cutts
wants to be very clear that this +1 data is public. While a big aspect of +1 is
sharing results with your social graph (which is still sort of confusing given
that Google isn’t an actual social network, so it’s Gmail chat contacts, Reader
and Buzz friends, etc) , it is also about using that data in aggregate to
highlight better results for everyone. For example, on a result that has been
+1′d, you’ll see if any of your friends have +1′d it (in a similar way to the
current Social Search look with people’s tiny profile icons under the result
itself). But you’ll also see that X number of other people that aren’t in your
social circle +1′d it as well.

The
+1 button and search results

How does +1 affect search results?

+1
helps people discover relevant content—a website, a Google search result, or an
ad—from the people they already know and trust. The +1 button appears on Google
search, on websites, and on ads. For example, you might see a +1 button for a
Google search result, Google ad, or next to an article you're reading on your
favorite news site.

Adding
the +1 button to pages on your own site lets users recommend your content,
knowing that their friends and contacts will see their recommendation when it’s
most relevant—in the context of Google search results. In addition, a user's
+1's appear on the +1 tab of their Google Profile. While +1’s are always
public, users can choose to make the +1 tab visible or invisible on their
profile.

When a
signed-in Google user is searching, your Google search result snippet may be
annotated with the names of the user's connections who've +1'd your page. If
none of a user's connections has +1'd your page, your snippet may display the
aggregate number of +1's your page has received.

Does +1 affect my site's performance in search?

Content
recommended by friends and acquaintances is often more relevant than content
from strangers. For example, a movie
review from an expert is useful, but a movie review from a friend who shares
your tastes can be even better. Because of this, +1's from friends and contacts
can be a useful signal to Google when determining the relevance of your page to
a user’s query. This is just one of many signals Google may use to determine a
page’s relevance and ranking, and we’re constantly tweaking and improving our
algorithm to improve overall search quality. For +1's, as with any new ranking
signal, we are starting carefully and learning how those signals affect search
quality.

Does +1 affect how Google crawls my site?

When
you add the +1 button to a page, Google assumes that you want that page to be
publicly available and visible in Google Search results. As a result, we may
fetch and show that page even if it is disallowed inrobots.txt.

How will the +1 button affect my traffic?

Personalized
annotations next to your page in search results may increase your site's
visibility and make your site's snippet more compelling, which may in turn
increase the odds that users will click through to your page.

To view
how +1 affects your search traffic, you can use the +1 Metrics tool in Webmaster Tools. Available metrics include:

·Search impact: See
the pages on your site that received the most impressions with a +1 annotation,
and see how +1 annotations impact click through rate (CTR).

·Activity: See the
total number of +1's received by pages on your site.

·Audience: See
aggregated information about people who have +1'd your pages, including the
total number of unique users, their location, and their age and gender.

How does the +1 button affect my ads?

The +1
button itself will appear next to your headline on search ads. Personalized
annotations will appear beneath your Display URL. For example, Maria +1's a
page selling a neat laptop holder on a website. When a search ad with that same
URL appears, her friend Sam might see the ad with the note "Maria and 28
other people +1'd this."

Who
sees +1?

Who can see the +1 button in Google Search?

The +1 button shows up for
signed-in Google users of using a modern browser.

What's an annotation?

Because
people trust their friends’ recommendations, personalized annotations display
the faces of friends and social connections who have already +1’d a piece of
content.

Google
tries to display +1’s to people (specifically those in the user’ssocial connections)
who would find them most useful. We hope that by making these recommendations
more discoverable, users will be even more engaged with your site.

Annotations
can appear in a couple of ways.

·When a
userhovers
over the +1 button on a page, we’ll display an annotation showing the faces
of friends who have +1’d that page. You don’t need to do anything to make this
happen.

·You can
also addinline annotations that appear next to the +1 button on
your page. To
enable these, you’ll need to update the+1 button code.

Who can see annotations from +1 buttons?

Everybody can see aggregate
annotations. Signed-in users also see personalized annotations from:

·People
in your Google+ circles

·People
who have you in a circle in Google+.

·People
in your Gmail (or Google Talk) chat list.

Are +1's public?

Yes, Google may show
personalized annotations to any signed-in user who has a social connection to a
+1. However, any Google user can choose whether or not to display their +1's on
theirGoogle profile.

Adding
the +1 button to a site

How do I add the +1 button to my site?

Where should I put the +1 button on my pages?

You
know your page and your users best, so we recommend putting the button wherever
you think it will be the most effective. Above the fold, near the title of the
page, and close to sharing links is often a good location. It can also be
effective to place the +1 button at both the end and the beginning of an
article or story.

+1 is a
public action, so you should add the button only to public, crawlable pages on
your site. Once you add the button, Google may crawl or recrawl the page, and
store the page title and other content, in response to a +1 button impression
or click.

Can I place multiple buttons on a single page
that all +1 different URLs?

Yes,
but you'll need to edit the button code. Use thehrefattribute to specify the target URL. For example,
if your home page has a module linking to your blog, and you want to add a +1
button to that module, edit the value of thehrefattribute to point to your blog's URL, like this:

What languages is the +1 button available in?

The +1 button and annotations
are available in 40 languages.

How often will Google crawl my +1'd pages?

+1 is a
public action, so you should add the button only to public, crawlable pages on
your site. Once you add the button, Google may crawl or recrawl the page, and
store the page title and other content, in response to a +1 button impression
or click.

How does +1 work with Buzz? Do we still need the
Google Buzz button?

Buzz
buttons are used for starting conversations about interesting web content
("Hey guys, what do you think about this news story?"). +1 buttons
recommend web content to people in the context of search results ("Peng
+1’d this page"), and +1's from social connections can help improve the
relevance of the results you see in Google Search. You can use the+1 button, or the
Buzz button, or both—pick what’s right for your content.

Some of my users get a security warning when
they view pages with the +1 button. How do I get rid of this?

The +1
button code requires a script from Google's servers. You can include this
script using either http:// or https://, like this:

If your
web page uses https://, some browsers and verification tools will show an error
when any assets on the page are called via http://. If your site serves pages
via https://, make sure that the +1 button code on those pages also uses
https://. (In fact, it's fine to use https:// in the button code for all pages,
even if they are only served via http://.)

Sharing

How can I enable sharing from the +1 button?

You
don’t need to do anything to enable sharing to Google+ from the +1 buttons on
your site. We've updated the +1 button code so that users with a Google+
account can share your content on Google+ just by clicking the +1 button and
then clickingShare on Google+.

Users
can add comments, pick the right circles, and share to the Stream on Google+,
starting new conversations about your content.

Note:When someone shares your
content to Google+, we'll display the URL of your page in the post. If your
page isn't yet public, make sure to share it with only a limited number of
people. Otherwise, your staging server URL will be visible on Google+.

Can I customize the site description that
appears when a user shares my content?

Google
attempts to find the most useful and descriptive +snippet to display. If you
have marked up your content rich snippets using the schema.orgvocabulary, Google+ will use
thename,image, anddescriptionproperties from the generic Thingtype.

Alternatively,
Google+ (though not Google Web Search) can useOpen Graphmetadata to create the
+snippet. It can also use the contents oftitleandmetadescription tags.

Is sharing private?

+1 is a
public action, so Google may show personalized annotations to any signed-in
user who has a social connection to a +1. However, any Google user can choose
whether or not to display their +1's on theirGoogle Profile.
Additionally, users can directly control who they share your content with by
specifying circles. As a result, the +1 is a public action, but sharing to
Google+ is controlled by the user.

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About Me

Mr. Anil Kumar Mishra is currently at CVDRE, DRDO Chennai. He has more than 5 years of professional experience in various libraries. He has worked with top international institutes and organizations in the world like Indian School of Business (ISB) Hyderabad, National Institute of Health and Family Welfare (NIHFW) New Delhi and Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO), Chennai. Developed India's first National Repository on Maternal Child Health at NCHRC, NIHFW @ http://www.childhealthindiainfo.com. Also developed the National Health Portal on Family Planning at NIHFW, New Delhi. He has written two papers for International conferences and many papers for national conferences and Journals. He is the life member of Indian Library Association. He has immense experience in managing electronic databases and has been an advisor on information resources and techniques to management and development of Information projects and Repositories like Child Resource Centre (CRC) of KILA and UNICEF, Kerala (http://wwww.crckila.org/). His areas of interests are Library Administration, Information Management, Library Computerization, Cloud Computiong, Semantic Web Technology, Content Management System, Systematic Literature Review and Digital Library. He has rich experience in building new libraries and institutional repositories. Checkout his BlogsGeeky e-Librarian, Key to ICT in LISandHot n Happening the top source for articles and news in social and digital media, technology, web culture, Library, Information and Communication Technology.